Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rain poured from the heavens. Even huddled under Riku’s umbrella, Naminé knew she would be sopping wet by the time she made it to the shop, but by moving her bag under the center of the umbrella, she could at least spare her sketchbook from the wrath of the storm. The thud of the raindrops against the vinyl canopy over Naminé’s head made them sound as large as thimbles. She was glad Mickey had stayed off the mountain with Sora’s familiars.

Naminé’s clothes and shoes were already a lost cause, so she contented herself with gazing at the peaceful gray around her. Rain painted a soft quiet over the world. It wasn’t an impenetrable quiet, but since it was just her and Riku walking to the shop that day, there was no one to break it.

Riku’s thoughts meandered in the comfortable silence. Memories bubbled closer to their surfaces on quietly rainy days. A memory of him jumping over puddles with Sora while trying to shake off the attention of his younger brother floated through him. Naminé could tell it was a fond one, but it wasn’t one that emerged often.

“Did you tell Terra we’re on our way?”

Riku’s question made Naminé blink. She was more lost in his memory than he was.

“Not yet.”

Terra responded to her text almost immediately.

The workbench they usually worked at was too cluttered- at least that was the excuse Terra gave for inviting Naminé and Riku upstairs to their apartment’s big table. Eraqus, who was sitting behind the shop counter, might have normally made a comment about unproductive training, but he was staring at an inventory spreadsheet on the shop’s ancient computer. Naminé didn’t need to look too closely at the screen to know that the cursor had been still for a long time- the rain was drowning him in old memories from decade-dead friends.

Once they made it upstairs, Terra frowned at the mud stains on Naminé’s socks and Riku’s pants and reentered the room with an armful of old sweaters, fuzzy socks, and soft pajama pants. Naminé couldn’t access her own memories as easily as she could access others, but she didn’t think that was why she couldn’t remember her father ever even acknowledging her rain-soaked clothes, except for maybe a reprimand to not let anything drip on the carpet.

It would be hard to get into the clear state of mind required to work new magic while wrapped in an oversized hoodie, but Naminé didn’t object.

“The World settles like blossom of chamomile,” Terra chanted. The teapot flashed on the higher planes. He poured the water into three different cups and plucked an embellished silver spoon from the counter to stir each cup. “Clockwise to add good luck,” he muttered, “counterclockwise to take away the bad.” He tapped the spoon on the side of a cup three times to seal the magic and handed it to Naminé. “There you go.”

“Thank you.”

She stared at the warm cup of camomile tea in her hands. The tea’s pale gold shimmered on the higher planes from the spell Terra had cast on it. She could smell the calming chamomile and the barest traces of yarrow petals.

A single clove sat on the bottom of the cup. It had annoyed Naminé, at first, that Terra always put in a single clove in every cup of tea he brewed for them, regardless of the blend or the spell on it. It was too little to affect the taste most of the time, but it was annoying to filter out every time she took a sip, and Terra looked hurt every time she had fished it out of the cup entirely. Eventually, in a completely different lesson, he taught her that cloves were used in protective spells. She kept them in after that.

The first sip of tea drew the last chills from Naminé’s body. Her mind stilled and sharpened. It tasted nice, too, like honeyed flowers.

“I was originally planning on having us work on magnet amulets today,” Terra said as he settled into his chair, “and maybe we will later, but I want to start with a lecture today.”

Naminé’s sketchbook had been spared from the majority of the rain, so she pulled it out, grabbed her box of colored pencils, and flipped to an empty page. Riku did the same with a lined notebook and mechanical pencil.

“What do you two know about the planes?”

They knew plenty, and Terra knew they knew, but that wasn’t why he asked.

“They’re like layers of reality, except superimposed on each other,” Naminé said. She doodled layered domes, but that wasn’t really correct.

“Amagicals can only see the first plane,” Riku said. “Mickey says there are five in total, but witches can only see three.”

“It’s a good thing Ven isn't here right now,” Terra said with a small smile, “because Chirithy claims there are seven planes, and then we’d be arguing about how many planes there are all day.” The smile on his face faded. “But what do you know about the fourth plane?”

Riku tensed. The tea in Naminé’s cup no longer felt as warm as it had a second ago.

“Why do you ask?” Riku asked slowly.

“It’s important to know about it,” Terra said. His face was as stormy as the winds outside. “Especially now that Vanitas is hanging around us all. He mostly resides on the fourth plane. It takes energy for him to materialize on the third plane. He’s a strong ghost, so it’s easy for him, but most ghosts can’t cross over easily.”

Naminé doodled a bedsheet ghost leaning against an invisible wall.

“How can you keep track of a weaker ghost during an exorcism then?” she asked. Riku had joined Terra for a few, but Naminé’s magic rarely involved the third plane, let alone the fourth.

“Most witches have their familiars look out for them in the short term,” Terra explained, “since they can naturally see the higher planes. We usually have to pull more aggressive ghosts to the third plane so we can see them. It has the bonus effect of making them weaker so they’re easier to deal with. But it can be tiring for us, too.”

“All you have to do is draw the right circle and lead the spirit to it, right?” Riku asked. His voice was slow and careful. “That’s what you guys did.”

“That’s what most people do,” Terra said. “But there’s another way. An exorcism will work no matter what plane a ghost is on, so all you really have to do is make sure you can track it.”

“You mean looking into the fourth plane,” Riku said.

Naminé stiffened.

“Yeah,” Terra said. “The fourth plane isn’t like the others. It leaves a mark. So if you ever see someone’s eyes flash yellow, it means they’re dealing with the fourth plane. They might just be looking, but they might be doing more.”

“Is it possible to reach onto the fourth plane?” Riku asked. His pencil hadn’t moved in his hand. “To exorcise ghosts and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Terra said. “But don’t ask me how.”

“You know how?” Riku asked.

Terra looked away.

“I’m not telling you this to teach you dark magic,” he said. His voice was cold as steel. “I’m just telling you because we have a ghost in the house right now. I know I don’t have to tell you guys how dangerous and corrupting dark magic is, but it’s worth repeating. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yeah,” Riku said quietly.

Naminé looked down at the sketch her hands had made. Yellow eyes stared back, framed by dark hair in a familiar style. She slammed the cover of her sketchbook closed.

“Is it time to work on magnet amulets now?” she asked.

“Yeah, if you want,” Terra said. He stood up and poured warm tea into their cups. “Magnet amulets are good at absorbing unwanted darkness. Powerful ones can even negate curses…”

The magnet amulet in Naminé’s hands was definitely not powerful enough to negate curses. The only thing mildly impressive about it was the rune she had scratched into it with a steady hand. Riku’s, on the other hand, shone and sparkled on all the planes Naminé could see. Terra had sent him downstairs to give it a final polish.

“Not bad for your first try,” Terra said when he noticed her staring at the amulet in her hands.

“Thank you,” Naminé responded automatically.

If she were perfectly honest, she doubted she would ever make a second try. Amulets were Terra’s specialty, not hers, but she held the knowledge close anyway, because it was something a witch knew.

But the same pang of guilt still ran through Naminé.

You don’t belong here, it hissed. Your master teaches you things you have no intention of using. You waste his time and energy.

Terra already knew my specialty when he took me in, Naminé tried telling it. I already know how to make tattoos. He’s here to teach me what Father and Lauriam never bothered to.

Ungrateful child. He pulled you from that horrible tattoo shop, and you repay him with disloyalty?

Her guilt always spoke with her father’s voice. Naminé opened her sketchbook in an effort to block it out. The good news was that it worked. The bad news was that the snake-yellow eyes that mercilessly bore into her gaze were even worse. Naminé must have made a sound, because Terra looked down at the sketchbook with concern. She scrambled to hide the face she had drawn.

It was his, after all.

“I’m sorry,” Terra said. “I know you don’t like people looking in your sketchbook.”

He poured her another cup of tea.

Naminé looked down in her lap where the sketchbook had fallen. The yellow eyes stared back.

Did Terra really cast dark magic? Did he stain his eyes yellow looking into the forbidden plane? There was no way Eraqus would let him do such a thing once, let alone frequently enough for Terra’s eyes to change color. There was only one way to find out, but it was far more intrusive than looking through someone’s sketchbook.

Naminé took a deep breath and looked past the yellow eyes she had drawn into the memory they had emerged from.

A young man sat at a table with a cup of cold chamomile tea. Naminé knew, without checking, that there was no clove in it. The cavernous room swallowed his body. He was slightly coiled from directionless fear. The table he sat at was empty and polished enough to have functioned as a colossal black mirror. The cup in his scuffed hands was the only sign anyone had ever used the mausoleum dining room.

Terra looked up, and his yellow eyes locked onto her.

Naminé’s heart stopped. His face softened with wonder at the sight of a girl the same age as Aqua had been the last time he had seen her, looking back through his memories as he looked forward into his future.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

Naminé was taken aback. She was in his memories. He shouldn’t have been able to see her at all, let alone speak to her. It must have already happened years ago, so how-

The miraculous bridge between time of memory and vision slowly began to close; miracles could never last. Naminé felt her presence gradually fade.

“Wait!” Terra cried. He grabbed her ghostly hand and squeezed it so hard Naminé winced. “Don’t leave me! Please!”

Naminé’s heart cracked. Maybe she should have been afraid of the Terra she hadn’t met yet with his eyes stained yellow and nails that weren’t quite scrubbed clean of blood and knuckles rubbed raw from countless thrown punches, but he was gripping her hand with the desperation of a man finding the smallest of ledges after plunging from a cliff.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she had never meant the words more. “I can’t stay.”

Terra swallowed.

“Can you at least tell me who you are?”

Naminé tried to smile. The effort was herculean under the strain of existing where she had no right to.

“I’m your apprentice,” she said. “Or I will be, I suppose.”

Her words seemed to strike Terra. He closed his eyes and let her hand slip through his.

“Go,” he said quietly. “And I hope I never see you again. For your sake.”

“What?”

The memory began to flicker around Naminé. She mustered all of her magic to keep it in her grasp.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, too.”

“No- wait! Terra!”

The memory flickered away. The last thing she saw was Terra’s pained grimace as he squeezed his eyes shut. Naminé desperately reached out her hand-

-and someone grasped it. Naminé felt a gentle pull back to the present by familiar clove and granite magic. Yellow eyes were replaced by warm brown ones.

“Terra,” she said.

He smiled, but all Naminé could think about was how hurt he had been alone in that cold room. She did the one thing she had wanted to then, and ran over to throw her arms around him- a hug years in the making.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I shouldn’t have looked through your memories. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Terra pressed the tip of his forehead against hers.

“Don’t be. I’m glad it wasn’t just a dream.”

Naminé closed her eyes. She never thought she’d ever receive any affection from a master of hers, let alone the most sacred gesture between witches.

“Where were you?” Naminé asked. “What happened to make you so upset?”

“I spent two years under the instructions of another master,” Terra said quietly. “I don’t like talking about it too much.”

“Can you at least tell me why you said you didn’t want to hurt me?”

“My master from then hurt me.” The brutal admission made Naminé tense. “He made me hurt other people. He said it was to teach me how not to be weak. I was afraid I’d teach you the same way.”

“You’re a good teacher. You haven’t hurt me at all.”

You’re the only adult who hasn’t.

Terra closed his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

And, at that moment, Naminé remembered that Terra was less than a decade older than she was. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t a very large gap at all.

Footsteps made Naminé look up from their embrace and wipe the tears from her eyes. Riku appeared on the stairwell and rushed over to them.

“Is everything okay?” He turned to Naminé. “Did you accidentally get caught in a bad memory?”

“No,” Terra said, “it was a good memory.”

Naminé still didn’t quite understand how it could have been a good memory, but he was so sincere she couldn’t help but believe him.

Night fell. Any aesthetic benefits of looking out at a rainy day were completely eclipsed by the reality of soggy weather. Naminé had changed out of the fuzzy sweater and back into her stiff, not-quite-dried socks and mudstained skirt in preparation for the arrival of Kairi’s mother, who would take Naminé and Kairi to their father’s house. Terra was picking up Nixio and dropping him and Riku off at their house. Only Naminé and Eraqus remained on the first floor of the shop.

The memories of his dead friends were still close at hand, close enough that Naminé could flip past the yellow-eyed sketch and start an entire new page with flashes of Bragi’s curly hair, Urd’s pinched smile, Hermod’s kind eyes, Vor’s playful pout, and Xehanort’s-

Naminé heard the second Eraqus’s eyes landed on her sketchbook; the silence from his caught breath and stopped heart was deafening even beneath the drumming rain. She grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No, please…” Eraqus didn’t sound like the grandmaster that led her coven. “May I see them?”

Naminé hesitantly handed the sketchbook over. Eraqus brushed his fingers over the colored pencil strokes.

“It has been so long since I have seen their faces,” he whispered. “I have a picture of the six of us, but you… I haven’t been able to see them alive in so long.” He gestured to each of the faces. “This is Hermod. He was like Terra, so kind, so gentle. Urd- Aqua reminds me of Urd. Such sturdy hearts, both of them, and so fond of ice, oddly enough. And Vor-” Eraqus smiled wryly. “I always teased Vor. She was the youngest of us all, but she was a prodigy. If only she had been able to grow up… You’re nothing like her- you’re older than she ever got to be- but sometimes, when I see you in the corner of my eye, just for a second, I think that she’s…” He trailed off.

“What happened to them?” Naminé asked quietly.

The raindrops nearly drowned the question from the air. Naminé almost immediately wished that they had; it wasn’t one of the smartest questions she had ever asked. The memory of shattered glass and the iron stink of blood and how Hermod’s lifeless body was reached towards Vor’s in a vain attempt to-

Naminé reached out, stopped the memory, and shoved it back into the depths of Eraqus’s heart. She gasped for breath and tried to scrub the images from her head.

“Forgive me,” Eraqus said. “I didn’t mean for my memories to overwhelm you.”

“It’s okay,” Naminé said. “It’s my fault. I should have expected it. If it’s too painful to tell me more...”

Eraqus’s eyes grew unfocused.

“Xehanort and I played hooky from lessons one day,” he said. “When we came back, Vor and Hermod were dead.” His eyes blazed with fury and grief. “Nagics broke in and shot them. The police never found out who. Some days, I doubt they even looked.”

“I’m so sorry,” Naminé said.

“Urd got sick and didn’t get better,” Eraqus continued, as if she had said nothing at all. “We took her to the hospital too late. Master Odin’s heart gave in. Bragi… he took his own life. I could never blame him for it. Xehanort and I were the only ones who ever got to be old enough for sigil tattoos.”

The pain in Eraqus’s voice was as fresh and ancient as the rain that fell outside. More memories flashed: graves, tears in the rain; Xehanort walking away and returning as a different person; a clan that kept its distance from the coven that had made a dark witch; a lifetime of sorrow, regret, and loneliness until the day a bright-eyed witch boy collided with him on the street.

“Our coven died with them,” Eraqus said. “Before, I wanted nothing to do with our traditions, our past. It bored me. I felt shackled to it. After that horrible, horrible year, I wanted nothing else but the preservation of our traditions, but I fear they will die with me.” He chuckled dryly. “I wonder if this is something all old people fear. Vanitas carries neither our clan’s mark nor its traditions, so I have no need to ask Xehanort’s feelings on the matter. But, then again, he may still carry a Keyblade around his neck. Tell me, child, have you materialized one yet? Have you decided if you want to?”

“I think I do,” Naminé said. “I just haven’t found the right time.”

“I have no desire to rush you,” Eraqus said. “Summoning a Keyblade binds you to the higher planes and the role of witch forever. It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.”

Naminé nodded. “Yes, Grandmaster.”

Eraqus smiled faintly at the title. “Remind me, what do you plan to specialize in?”

“Tattoos,” Naminé said. “I know Terra doesn’t know anything about them, but Lauriam, my first master, taught me enough. I already gave Terra one, remember? The words on his wrist.”

“I remember now,” Eraqus said. “Very impressive for your age.”

“Thank you,” Naminé said. “I want to specialize in sigil tattoos, specifically. When I come of age, I’ll tattoo my sigil on myself. Maybe I’ll learn how to make amagical tattoos when I’m older.”

“Ah, yes,” Eraqus said. “Sigil tattoos. When I was your age, no one had their own. They just carried their coven’s and maybe their clan’s. These days, every witch has their own sigil. My apprentices carry our sigil, but I fear that they see it as my sigil and not our sigil. I don’t blame them. I am the only us they know. How can they understand the multitude of histories contained in our sigil?”

Naminé flipped to a new page and drew it. She had seen it enough to do from her memory alone. When she was done, she looked at it, really looked at it. Would it reveal itself to her?

It looked like a sharpened heart emerging from a… plane of some sorts. The three points at its base looked bigger than they actually were, like arrows stretching forever. The heart was still attached to its base, inescapable as a shadow. Infinite chaos, infinite darkness, but the heart emerged from it, strengthened by... something.

Suddenly, Naminé felt it. She felt the sigil’s memory. It wasn’t like a person’s memory, it was longer, complicated, even contradictory, and it stretched on for what felt like forever.

“We used to be a clan,” Naminé heard herself whisper. “The most powerful clan of them all. Almost- no, everyone had Keyblades. Then there was a… war? Our coven emerged from the darkness of that war, the only remnants of the Keyblade-bearing witches.”

“Incredible,” Eraqus breathed. “You learned this all from the sigil? I’ve never seen anything like it. To even speak of the war is… frowned upon.”

“I’m sorry,” Naminé said automatically.

“No, it’s quite alright. You didn’t know. And it’s best that you know that much if you wish to be a part of our coven. I only told Aqua and Terra when they finished their apprenticeship. I think some witches in our clan see Keyblades as antiquated tokens of a dark time period.” Eraqus closed his eyes. “Sometimes I agree. Our history is such a burden.”

“I don’t think so,” Naminé said. “If we can survive a war, we can survive anything. I’m glad I got the opportunity to learn about it.”

A car pulled up to the shop. Even through the fogged window, Naminé recognized it as Kairi’s mother’s. She nodded her head to Eraqus.

“Kairi’s mom is here. It was nice speaking with you, Grandmaster.”

Eraqus smiled at her. “Thank you for listening. Not many have the patience for an old man’s ramblings.”

“No,” Naminé said, “thank you for your stories.” She carefully removed the page with Eraqus’s friends from her sketchbook and gave it to him. “You should have this. If you want it.”

He took it with trembling hands.

“Truly, child, I cannot thank you enough.”

Naminé stopped at the doorway and looked back one last time. Eraqus was cradling the picture in his hands as if, at any second, his friends would come back to life on the page.

She slipped out of the shop and ran to the car. The back door was already unlocked. Naminé entered and closed the door in one fluid motion.

Kairi turned from her position in the front seat as Naminé buckled her seatbelt.

"How was training today with just you and Riku?" she asked.

I discovered Terra’s darkest secret, fulfilled a time paradox, and accidentally unearthed our grandmaster’s childhood trauma.

"It was good," Naminé said instead. "I spoke with with Grandmaster Eraqus."

"Really?" Kairi asked. "It's funny. He's always around, but I've never really talked to him. I always figured he didn't really like how loud we could be."

"I don't think he wants to interfere with his student's teaching," Naminé said. "But he's very interesting. I can see why Terra, Aqua, and Ventus like him so much. How was the field trip?"

"The play we saw was really boring," Kairi said. "Honestly, I almost wish that we had class instead. But Sora cried at the end! He was a mess. Roxas had to give him a ten-minute hug."

"That sounds like Sora," Naminé said.

She fished through her bag for a permanent marker. As Kairi's mother made sure Kairi hadn't forgotten anything for the weekend, she pulled up her uniform sleeve and drew the coven’s sigil on the inside of her arm. It looked nice there.

"I got some new nail polish," Kairi said. "Want me to do your nails?"

Naminé didn't like the feeling of nail polish weighing her nails down, and Kairi was really bad at painting nails, but Naminé nodded anyway. It felt like a normal Friday-night thing to do with one's sister.

As Kairi's mother pulled into their father's driveway, Naminé pulled the sleeve back down. Father would not be happy if he saw the sigil on her arm.

"Bye, Mom," Kairi said with a last hug. "Love you! See you on Monday."

"Love you too, sweetie."

Naminé grabbed her bag and slipped from the car. Cold rain fell around the porch overhang. It flooded down like a chilling roar. Naminé started to shiver. But she still hesitated before at the front door.

“What’s wrong?” Kairi asked. “Is the door locked?”

The car was still in the driveway as Kairi’s mom waited to see her daughter safely enter inside.

“I don’t know,” Naminé said.

“Then why won’t you open the door?”

Because the rain is warmer than Father.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Kairi asked.

“It should be,” Naminé said without thinking. “Father’s always nicer when you’re around.”

“What does that mean?” Kairi asked wearily.

Oh, no.

The front door was unlocked after all. Naminé slipped inside.

“Don’t let anything drip on the-” Father’s voice lightened when he noticed who Naminé was with. “Ah, hello, Kairi. How was school today?"

"School was fine," Kairi said evenly. "But I have a lot of homework."

"It's a Friday," Father said. "Why don't you tell me more about your day?"

"I'll get all my homework done tonight and tell you all about it tomorrow," Kairi said.

Father's lips pursed. His eyes closed in disappointment.

"Very well. I’ll start dinner soon."

“Alright.”

The second the two of them entered their room, Kairi closed the door and turned to Naminé.

“What did you mean?”

“It’s nothing, really,” Naminé said. “I live with Father all the time, so he’s a bit harsher sometimes. But it’s fine, really. Will you paint my nails?”

“Okay,” Kairi said. “But if there’s something you want to tell me… well, there’s a reason my mom didn’t get married to him.”

“What nail polish colors did you bring? I can paint yours, too”

Kairi accepted the change of subject and rummaged through her bag.

Naminé closed her eyes as her sister brushed the formaldehyde-laden ooze onto her nails. Only 1389 days until she turned eighteen. Only 1389 days until she would be free of her father. Only 1389 days until she would turn the drawing on her arm from a temporary sharpie scribble to a true sigil connecting her to her true forefathers. Only 1389 days until she could emerge from the darkness like all the others who had worn the sigil before her.